Out and About

Okinawa Prefecture International Exchange Section Guide Inspection

Seven words…21 syllables…and kind of scary sounding. They didn’t line us up and make sure our clothes were clean and ironed or anything. This was the activity listed in our schedule for July 31 (thurs). It turned out that we went to the Okinawa Peace Memorial, then to Shurji castle.

The Peace Memorial had a museum about the fighting in Okinawa during WWII which was so horrific that it drove the people of the island to devote themselves to peace. We had headsets with keypads into which we could punch the numbers found on particular displays to hear information in English, but there was tons more that was in Japanese. It was probably for the best though, because we were pressed for time as it was.

Outside of the museum was the memorial itself which had big blocks of some sort of stone (granite?) with the names of everyone killed on the island – US and Japanese armies and Okinawan Civilians. Each has a section.

After that we went to a castle, the main one of the Ryukyu kingdom. It was pretty cool, a mixture of Chinese and Japanese architecture. The buildings and the interiors were really pretty. Afterwards we all got ice cream and shaved ice.

Adventures In Naha

On Saturday, we headed out to Naha for a performance. We got there early so we could wander down a big shopping street and have dinner. We had donuts and ice cream (again). Then we went to Mac’s because the Imajin kids we were with won the vote. (I think the other group of people went to a restaurant for soba noodles)

Afterwards, we had a performance which went pretty well. We should have pretty good pictures and video. An old lady saw Carole and the video camera and dragged her to a good spot right before we went on. An Imajin member gave Gabe a jacket so that he was “official”. Some festival staff person saw his jacket and told him to go to the front. (when asked how we was supposed to do that, the response was “push them aside”)

After us, the main Matsuri Daiko group performed. For everyone not aware, this is the parent group of Imajin, and we are a US chapter of Matsuri Daiko. The man who sings Mirukumunari (the bowing song…) was there and sang while they played. Afterwards, we and Imajin had our picture taken with him. We did several creative things to see over the crowd: Nick climbed a tree (a classic approach), a bunch of us croweded around back stage to peek, eventually Genta and I stood in the back of the crowd and watched the screen of my video camera which I held above everyone’s head (not original, but whatever works). Eventually, Michiyo put us on the stage area at the very back. Durring the last dance, they dragged us up to dance around (and some other audience members too.)

All that was left then was to pack back up, and begin our two hour trip back to Nakajin.